Neomylodon
Other names: Grypotherium domesticum, Neomylodon listai : Country reported: Argentina, Chile The Patagonian ground sloth was a cryptid ground sloth proposed to exist in Patagonia by Florentino Ameghino based on the discovery of exceedingly well-preserved skin fragmentsAmeghino, Florentino (1898) An Existing Ground-Sloth in Patagonia and an alleged sighting by Ramón Lista.Heuvelmans, Bernard (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals Ameghino connected the animal with stories of the iemisch, and later writers with the succarath and ellengassen. The story caused quite a stir in turn-of-the-century Europe, and a British expedition was sent to Patagonia to search for more evidence.Heuvelmans, Bernard (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals The skin A German sheep rancher named Hermann Eberhard discovered the Cueva del Milodon in January 1895. Inside he found a large piece of hide, 1.5m long and about 70 to 80cm wide, which looked fresh but which he knew belonged to no known animal.Hauthal, R. (1899) Reseña de los Hallazgos en las Cavernas de Última Esperanza Eberhardt kept the skin hanging for a year, until he showed it to a visiting scientist, Nils Otto Gustaf Nordenskjöld, who found more pieces of skin and bones in the cave. His specimens were sent back to Sweden, where they were identified as Mylodon.Lönnberg, E. (1899) On some remains of Neomylodon Listai Ameghino, brought home by the swedish expedition to Tierra del Fuego, 1895-1897 Francisco Moreno, curator of the La Plata Natural Sciences Museum, also took a piece of skin, and sent it back to his museum. At this point, Florentino Ameghino wrote a paper on the Mylodon, allegedly based on a skin found by his brother Carlos, in which he expressed belief that the animal was still alive. He claimed to have been told by Carlos of "a mysterious quadruped which is said to exist in the interior of the territory of Santa Cruz, living in burrows hollowed out in the soil, and usually only coming out at night. Accordig to the reports of the Indians, it is a strange creature, with long claws and a terrifying appearance, impossible to kill because it has a body impenetrable alike to firearms and missiles". He named the animal Neomylodon listai. His paper caused an uproar across the world, and led to several expeditions being sent out to find a live Mylodon. The Daily Express expedition under Hesketh Prichard, which did not actually reach the Cueva del Milodon, was sent out after the English palaontologist Ray Lankester mentioned during a lecture that the Mylodon may still live.Holland, W. (1913) To the River Plate and back : the narrative of a scientific mission to South America Moreno, however, insisted that the skin was very old, and sent it to be examined by Sir Arthur Woodward in London, who initially backed Lista before deciding the skin was thousands of years old. Ameghino now wrote a note connecting the skin with an animal called the iemisch, an aquatic monster which killed horses. Meanwhile, another scientist named Erland Nordenskjöld had visisted the cave and pronounced that the skin belonged to a different type of sloth, Glossotherium. Geologist Rudolf Hauthal also explored the cave, and declared that the sloths - Grypotherium domesticum - had been kept in there by the Indians in a semi-domesticated state. Further testing suggested that the skins found in the cave were around 10,000 years old, and preserved by climatic conditions. Neomylodon and Grypotherium are now considered synonymous with either Mylodon or Glossotherium. Sightings Undated Ameghino claimed that he had heard may stories of a: :"mysterious quadruped … in the interior of the territory of Santa Cruz, living in burrows hollowed out in the soil, and usually only coming out at night. According to the reports of the Indians, it is a strange creature, with long claws and a terrifying appearance, impossible to kill because it has a body impenetrable alike to firearms and missiles." circa late 1880's Ameghino wrote that Ramón Lista, governor of Santa Cruz, told his brother Carlos Ameghino of a sighting he'd had of a large, hairy, pangolin-like creature. He was riding in Santa Cruz when a large, shaggy, red-haired animal very much like a pangolin without scales appeared. He fired on it, but the bullets had no effect and the animal wandered off.W. G. Ridewood (1901) On the Structure of the Hairs of Mylodon Listai and other South American EdentataHesketh-Prichard, Hesketh (1902) Through the Heart of Patagonia''Chatwin, Bruce (1977) ''In Patagonia According to Ameghino, Lista described the animal as :"a pangolin (''Manis), almost the same as the Indian one, both in size and in general aspect, except that in place of scales, it showed the body to be covered with a reddish grey hair. He was sure that if it were not a pangolin, it was certainly an edentate nearly allied to it." Hesketh Prichard, who was sent to Patagonia to search for the ''Mylodon, could not find a record of the encounter in any of the books written by Lista, who was dead by the time of the skin's discovery. Expeditions 1900 Hesketh Prichard was sent to Patagonia to search for evidence of the Mylodon in 1900. He found no evidence, and did not believe a large animal could live in Patagonia's dense Valdivian forests, which he did not explore. However, he admitted that "in addition to the regions visited by our Expedition, there are, as I have said, hundreds and hundreds of square miles about, and on both sides of the Andes, still unpenetrated by man. A large portion of this country is forested, and it would be presumptuous to say that in some hidden valley far beyond the present ken of man some prehistoric animal may not still exist. Patagonia is, however, not only vast, but so full of natural difficulties". 2001 In 2001 Charlie Jacoby, the grandson of Hesketh Prichard, led an expedition to Patagonia to search for evidence of a live ground sloth.Shuker, Karl (2010) Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times Further cryptozoological reading *Hesketh-Prichard, Hesketh (1902) Through the Heart of Patagonia. *Heuvelmans, Bernard (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals Notes and references Category:Cryptids Category:South America Category:Argentina Category:Chile Category:Theory: Living fossil Category:Theory: Living fossil - Ground sloth Category:Historical